Jay Z's extensive catalog of solo music has been pulled from Apple Music and Spotify. In a statement to The Verge, Spotify said the removal of some of Jay Z's catalog was done “at the request of the artist.”
The two leading streaming services no longer have any of Jay Z's solo work, with only features and his projects with R. Kelly and Linkin Park remaining on the services. This is the third time Jay Z's content has been pulled from the streaming services — after Tidal launched Jay Z removed his debut album, Reasonable Doubt, from all streaming services except for Tidal. Last year, Jay Z's Blueprint series was removed from streaming services as well.
It's pretty late in Tidal's run to be restricting his entire catalog to the service, as Jay Z could've done this when Tidal launched to give it a nice jump start. Surprisingly most of Jay Z's catalog is available on Google Play Music, with Reasonable Doubt, and the the Blueprint series as the glaring omissions.
At this point, if you want to hear Jay Z's solo work, it's probably time to sign up for Tidal. We've reached out to Roc Nation and Apple Music for comment.